At least I drew a face today…

mixed media on sketchbook page, drawing inspired by Mindy Lacefield

Well, the beginnings of a face, or a rather messy face. When I was at this stage I thought I was nearly there. Now it’s late and I am in doubt whether to share this. But, ah well, all part of the deal of sharing every day. (Nooooo, cries miss Perfection. It should be perfect. Ha ha ha.)

When I started this blog I wanted to share my art journey, my path into art, my experience and hoped to meet others with similar interest through this. Other ideas have come up over time about the whys and hows. But showing the art work, the playing on the page, is what I like to see in others and I hope you, my reader, does too. So there – today I’m just showing that little bit of art work I managed to do.

It’s one of those days with lots to do. And the day after one of those days, tired because I worked 10 hours yesterday, got into bed too late, and so on. I know, I shouldn’t do that, but sometimes it’s like that. Well okay. Today looked like it might turn out to be like that as well. I knew there would be a kind of webinar at night, a live talk on Facebook. It might get late. So I put in a bit of time to do art, take a break.

I settled in to to try out something I haven’t tried before, painting like Mindy Lacefield. I bought one of her online classes a long time ago, I almost forgot…. I have been intrigued for a while by these roundish, colourful, sometimes messy faces she paints. I like the combination of cute and grunge she produces. I want to know how she does that.

I watched one or two videos. Ha ha, I should know by now that I can’t sit still and just watch. So 30 seconds in I stop the video, grab a sketchbook from somewhere nearby – and I work with what is on hand while I throw glances at the computer at how Mindy Lacefield works. I see her paint with acrylic paints, but I only have pen and ink, watercolor, so I start with that. She uses her fingers, I try to do it too. She keeps adding layers, my page is wet. (Of course, she edited the drying time out.) I have to wait for it to dry. Oh my, I’m getting so impatient these days. In the meantime I think about how I can approach on my page what she is doing on hers, with her layers of paint. Impossible of course to copy. I decide that I’d best finish with dry media. As Mindy Lacefield uses a lot of white paint on top of earlier layers, and paint out a lot of the color, I conclude I need something opaque and pick out some dry media: first conté crayons (set of portrait colors), but as they have no whites in the box I pick a box pastels, in black, greys and white. I play. I add the darkest darks with a china marker. I like what I’ve got, but need to use fixative before being able to scan it. Pouring rain, I wait and go back to work. after the rain, I run out to do the fixing. I can’t leave it, as it might rain again. The fixative seems to have messed it up a bit. Back to work. I’ll have to get back to her later.

The earlier version looks like this, after pen, watercolor, a line around the face of china marker and hair in graphite pencil:

I need to do this a few more times. I rather liked the watercolor effects and they seem to have gotten lost.

Thank you my friend. It always looks different in the morning. Haha.
I try to see through the mess – then I see the eyes are nice! – and remember that I can do more and get even better next time. And I did another one. Will share soon. 🙂

Thanks, Effy. It took a while – and a period of illness – to learn that better to draw with what is here, than to ONLY see others drawing and painting while I do not have my daily practice. There is happiness in seeing someone paint – but it’s even better to hear the splash of the brush in the water, the feel of the paper and so on (you know!). Thanks for taking the time to drop by. xoxo